Teenage gym employee uses MMA skills to take down suspected thief

A teen gym employee took down a suspected thief attempting to break into his car earlier this week in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Gavin Archer, 18, used his mixed martial arts and jiu-jitsu skills to battle the unidentified man in the June 3 incident. Archer has a blue belt in jiu-jitsu. 

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Surveillance video obtained by the social news platform Storyful shows Archer opening the door to Planet Jiu Jitsu Indianapolis and talking to a man outside, and shortly after, the man lunged toward Archer, who brought him to the ground.

Archer wrote in an Instagram post that he hoped his attacker “gets the help he needs.”

Ian Pomfret, the gym’s manager, shared that the suspected thief told Archer he worked at a nearby car shop and thought Archer’s vehicle was “a car he was ‘supposed to work on’.” Pomfret told Storyful that charges were pressed against the attacker.

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“Due to Gavin’s years of martial arts and jiu-jitsu training, he was able to minimize the strikes that were being thrown at him … securing the man’s back, and choking him unconscious to eliminate the immediate threat of danger so he could call police,” Pomfret wrote on Instagram.

This story was reported from Washington, D.C.